NOVANEWS
Israeli Deputy Speaker Proposes Solution For Palestinians: Concentration Camps And ‘Extermination’
Author: Jameson Parker
Israel’s Parliamentary Deputy Speaker has laid out a detailed proposal for how to address the ongoing conflict in Gaza by posting a Facebook message that calls for putting all Palestinians in concentration camps and killing those who resist.
Despite his high rank in Israel’s government, Moshe Feiglin is no stranger to hateful, violent remarks towards Palestinians. While Israel has claimed the invasion of Gaza was merely an act of self-defense in response to rockets fired by Hamas, Feiglin has been unable to hide his giddiness at the prospect of reacquiring the Gaza Strip for Israelis via ethnic cleansing.
In an Op-Ed that was devoid of even a hint of self-awareness, Feiglin argued that because Hamas leaders had sometimes called for Israel to be wiped off the map, Israel was justified in wiping Palestinians off the map.
Adding further detail to the whole “remove any and all Arabs from Gaza by any means necessary” plan, Feiglin has now called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to simply find a desolate area that Israelis don’t want, erect some tents and put all Palestinians there. If there are some who refuse this malicious offer, simply continue to blow up their homes until none are left alive.
He writes in a Facebook post addressed to Netanyahu:
“[Israel should] designate certain open areas on the Sinai border, adjacent to the sea, in which the civilian population will be concentrated, far from the built-up areas that are used for launches and tunneling.In these areas, tent encampments will be established, until relevant emigration destinations are determined.”
And for those who don’t leave:
“[Gaza should be] shelled with maximum fire power. The entire civilian and military inf-rastructure of Hamas, its means of communication and of logistics, will be destroyed entirely, down to their foundations.”
To ensure maximum misery of the Palestinian people, he also adds that all electricity and water should be cut off from Palestinian use.
Feiglin doesn’t seem to dwell on that effects these policies would have on the victims of them. Needless to say, nearly 2 million Palestinian refugees living in a desert tent city with no power or water would lead to a mass die off from starvation, disease, exposure and dehydration. It would be genocide, plain and simple. As such, it would be breaking international law.
Ironically, the laws against genocide are the very same ones that were established in 1948, just three years after another unwanted minority group was put into concentration camps and systematically exterminated. Strangely, Feiglin ignores the obvious parallels to his own people’s lived experience of genocide when laying out the plans to do roughly the same.
Fieglin wants nothing more than the total annihilation of the Palestinian people and in their place, he wants to see Israelis move back into Gaza. For him, there is no “two-state solution,” he believes the Palestinian territories (in Gaza, but also the West Bank) are rightfully the Jewish people’s and taking them by force is not only justified, but inevitable.
When the international community shakes its collective heads at the failed peace talks that occur on a near yearly basis between the Palestinians and the Israelis, it’s worth remembering that senior ranking officials in Israel’s government are actively rooting for those talks to fail before they even begin. Hamas surely has no love for Israel, but Israel is not innocent.
Sadly, Feiglin isn’t exactly a fringe thinker in Israel, either. As VICE magazine noted this week, since the war began, there has been a perceptible rise in racism against Palestinians and other Arab groups across the country.
Israel has never been the kind of free and open society it has tried so hard to project. Racism did not begin with the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir or the beating and attempted lynching of Jamal Julani. “Zionist doctrine has always pushed society in a very particular direction,” the academic Marcelo Svirsky told me. But it is getting worse. “There is a phenomenon happening right now across Israeli cities that I have not seen before, having lived in Israel for 25 years.”
The violent rhetoric which Feiglin uses with such vigor isn’t being met in Israel with disgust, but enthusiasm. His Facebook post – the one in which he explicitly calls for the mass murder of Palestinians – has garnered more than 8,000 “likes.” Many in the comments section praise Feiglin as a hero. Some go so far as to hope he becomes the next Israeli prime minister.
The idea that concentration camps and mass murder are not just openly touted but supported should be terrifying to everyone. After all, Israel – a country literally born out of attempted genocide – should know better than anyone what an awful thing ethnic persecution can be. When we say “never again,” I’ve always took it to mean “genocide against anyone.” Apparently, some like Feiglin feel like there ought to be an exception to that rule when it comes to people they don’t like.
